Wooden pallets are used to transport a variety of bulk goods and equipment as required in manufacturing and warehousing operations. In high volume industries, pallet pools provide a lower total industry cost than one-way pallets. The current assignee of the present invention recognizes the benefits of pooled pallets, and currently has over several hundred million pallets that are pooled each year.
After the bulk goods and equipment are off loaded from the pooled pallets, the pallets are returned to pallet inspection and repair facilities for inspection, and if necessary, repair, before the pallets are returned to service.
As one might expect, wooden pallets are subject to damage in use that occurs from handling with forklifts or other like equipment. Since wooden pallets are in wide use, a large number of damaged and unusable pallets need to be repaired or discarded daily during the pallet inspection and repair process. Repair of damaged pallets has become an increasingly sound alternative to disposal due to the sheer volume of pallets that require repair each day.
Pallet inspection and repair traditionally requires manual handling and inspection by an operator, with mechanized systems available for moving pallets to and from the human operator who completes the repair of the pallets. An automated pallet inspection and repair system is advantageous because it does not rely on a human operator to perform the inspection and repair.
U.S. published patent application no. 2006/0242820 discloses an automated pallet inspection and repair system, which is assigned to the current assignee of the present invention and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The automated pallet inspection and repair system discloses an automatic pallet inspection cell comprising multi-axis robot arms that terminate in either internal or exterior pallet grippers. A robot may be used to transport a gripped pallet through an automated pallet inspection station that generates a three-dimensional data map of a pallet surface. A processor interprets the map and generates a corresponding repair recipe.
One or more repair stations may conduct pallet repair operations that are specified by the repair recipe. For removing damaged or broken boards on the pallet, the '820 published patent application discloses a board removal machine comprising a stationary horizontal band saw. The pallet is positioned in such a way that the blade of the band saw is located between adjacent boards of the pallet. By linearly advancing the pallet toward the blade, the nails or other fasteners used to hold a board can be cut so that the board can be completely removed. While effective in removing boards from the pallet, there is a need to improve such a process.